Ah, time. It passes slowly.

Things are so different today.

Not long ago they were bad but getting better, then that ended.  Why, I'm not sure that anyone actually holds the answer to that question, or better yet if they do they're certainly not going to give the information up easily.  I don't know that I have the energy to try to find out why right now either.  It appears that mid-life for me is something akin to purgatory.  I'm neither saved, nor am I condemned. 

Different.  I said that didn't I?  I'm not sure that word aptly fits the situation really.  I traveled the world.  Many different countries, many different places, millions of faces, and now I'm back to this.  This, which I left so willingly.  I relegated myself to it.  I didn't have many other options, there were a couple, though none would have left me in a good situation, this didn't really offer much more hope other than I would be alright eventually.  The others didn't pose an offer nearly as guaranteed.

So here I am.  Back again where I started, with roughly as much as I started with.  My world used to be massive.  I've traveled somewhere near 4 million miles, almost a million of them I've driven.  I never thought this would come to this at all. 

I move through the people here gently.  I try not to attract any attention to myself, though it's very hard because I don't really belong here.  I don't fit well, I suppose I fit as well as anyone, but people see me differently.  I'm quiet, I keep to myself, I don't talk much, I don't have much to say anymore. 

What  I do see is the remains of my beginnings and the changes that it has gone through over the years I was moving around, creating a life, gaining an identity.  It's different.  It has eroded over time much like you would expect anything to, but there are little things that remain the same.  There is and always will be ... this.

I see the people I used to know.  Largely unchanged by life and time.  I know everyone thinks this is great, that stability is good, but I don't really agree.  Actually, better put, that couldn't be further from the truth.  The people that are the same that have remained unchanged by life have never attempted anything that they weren't comfortable with.  They've embraced the mantra of "it is what it is" and have allowed themselves to be unchallenged.  "This is as good as it gets" isn't always the case.  Sometimes the world leaves scars.  Those scars are what makes you better, stronger and certainly wiser.  Someone that has none of those scars, has missed the point of living. 

Memories of when I was a kid are painted indelibly on my memory, but the more prominent memories are the ones I have after I've left.  After I grew.  After I carved out my life and became a person.  Not that I wasn't a person, but I became my own person.  My experiences with the world allowed me to grow, challenged me to do more than accept "it is what it is" as all that things will ever be.  It is also what tortures me now.

It's also why I have this incredible need to move on. 

Responsibility for yourself.

There are certain things that we look to others for that is normal.  It's part of the human condition.  We sometimes look to others to validate our performance, a pat on the back, a job well done can go a long way to encouraging someone to gain more personal growth and they may ultimately surpass their goals.  We look to others for help when we're ill if we need to.  We look to others for compassion when we're feeling blue.  Nothing like a close friend that can make you laugh and see things in a different light that will help relieve some stress and make a bad patch a little bit better.

 

Happiness, however, is your sole responsibility.  You and you alone are responsible for being happy.

 

If you are not, then it is you that has to sit down and try to work out why you are not and what you can do to change it so you are.  If you push your own personal responsibility to someone else and allow them to be responsible for it, that person will fail you.  Doing that creates a perfect storm of try and fail, anger and regret.  There will be unhappiness, there will be an attempt to restore that happiness and in the short-term it may work.  The cycle will grow and sooner or later will become a burden on both people.  One will look on the other with disdain and the other will wonder what they're doing wrong.  Whatever their relationship, it will fall apart.  That much is pre-determined. 

 

If you're able, please, by all means, brighten someone's day with a kind word, a joke to make someone laugh, simple polite conversation, but never assume responsibility for someone else's happiness.  It'll make you miserable.

 

It won't end well.